Thanks For the Memories
by anatomicallyinclined
Summary: After her father's death, a reckless get away and unexpected heartbreak, Clarke heads back to California to complete her medical degree and attempts to start over. But what happens when she finds out that the one who broke her heart goes to the same institution she does, sharing an elective or two together. (I suck at summaries so this is subjected to change).
1. PROLOGUE

**This is a new idea I've had in my head for a long time and i just needed to get it all out. It's a Modern College AU and I'm hoping that i'm off to a good start. Also, my last fic, Blue Nights by the River, I have marked it as completed. I just felt like there was nothing more to be added to that one. But because of all the support it got, I decided to try a new one. Hope y'all like it. Please leave reviews.**

Back to life. Back to reality. Back to the everyday life of Clarke Griffin. Yup…that's me. I probably make my life sound so dreadful, when it is really much worse than that. I'm 3700 miles away from everything I love; my family, my friends (well I hope they still are) and my life. But when you've been in California for three years already, you get conditioned to the environment, to the beaches, to the sun and it's warmth, to the people. You begin accepting it as your home. Until one day eventually, you keep praying that your vacation gets shorter and shorter, cause you can't wait to get back.

But when you've had a messed up vacation like me, you pray for it to be over even before it really starts. Long story short, my dad had a heart attack when he found out my mother had an affair with my best friend's father who also happened to be my father's best friend and my best friend knew about it from beginning to end. I took it much harder than it was to say that last sentence in one breath. Two weeks into my vacation, I found out about it. Two weeks into my vacation I lost my dad. No matter how much they tried to apologize, the one thing they failed to understand was that apologies don't bring back the dead. So what did I do? I left. I packed a bag and left to wherever I could get a ticket too. Venezuela. Put that on the list for the first of the reckless things I've done within the last two months.

It may have been a reckless thing to do, but I didn't regret it. For starters, the ticket I bought was not one way. It was a ticket on a chartered flight to Venezuela. So it pit stopped in Trinidad where it was delayed for a day. When we finally touched down in Caracas, I lost my luggage. So there I was, exhausted and pissed for letting the jet lag get the best of me. I was also pissed at the fact that I didn't have any clothes. But what the hell, who cares, especially when you're attempting reckless. I sat outside airport waiting for a taxi, observing the people, both local and foreign. It was such a drastic difference than what you would've encountered in the states. Locals chattering about and shouting in Spanish, people coming to the country for the first time marveling at what they've seen so far, family's meeting each other for the first time in days, weeks, months, years, who knows how long. It was then that one particular brown haired pair caught my eye, a young guy probably my age and his sister, or was it his girlfriend? They resembled too much so it must be his sister. They didn't look particularly happy, but they weren't particularly sad either. It was as though they were here for the same reason I was, and I took comfort in the fact that losing something, or feeling loss, it's normal. It happens to best of us. Coincidentally, I ended up staying at the same hotel they were, and we bonded not over our losses but over the way we helped each other get over it. Let's just say, reckless is not enough to describe my "vacation".

Coming back to California was hard, because it meant that facing reality meant going back home to Virginia to pack back up all my stuff, having to deal with my mother Abigail, my godfather Thelonius and my best friend Wells, all of whom became the bane of existence the day their betrayal was uncovered. Matters had gotten worse when word about my mother's extra-marital affair gotten out. Being the daughter of a US Senator, and to have your mother fraternizing with his colleague, it carried a social stigma. Let's just say I've tolerated being put at the centre of attention, but I wanted to get out of it so bad, that I blew the entire situation out of proportion. I told my mother that I never wanted to see her again. I told Wells that if he had said something none of this would've happened and that he couldn't be forgiven. And I told uncle Thelonius, that he had no right to call my father his friend because friends don't sleep with the other's wife. Before I left Virginia, they had the reading of my father's will. I became the beneficiary of his trust fund and everything else went to my mother. I knew this was coming, because I was there when dad had the will done. But the letter he left with the will, made me rethink some of the decisions I was about to make, especially the one about not accepting the money. It was my father's dream, to see me finish out med school, that the house needed another doctor. I didn't want to be anything like my mother, but my father's wish remained as it was, and that the trust fund would pay for my tuition until I finish and begin to earn on my own. UCLA was certainly not easy to maintain, but right now the further I was away from home the better.

So now here I am, back in California, ready to take on the world, making sure that my dad's money doesn't go to waste. But this time around I'm not the same old cautious, miss prim and proper, daughter of a senator Clarke Griffin. I'm new. At least after the past two months, I feel as though disappointment and heartbreak are things of the past and for once a new chapter of my life is about to begin.

**Please leave reviews. I need some motivation.**


	2. Chapter 1

**I know I'm off to a slow start, but i promise that everything will come into light soon. Please Read and Review.**

"Students, Students, it's really very difficult to speak when it's 100 of you and 1 of me so if you could please be quiet so I could give you your first assignment for the semester, it would be much appreciated," shouted my anatomy lecturer Dr. Jackson.

"Hey, little birdie told me we have a newbies in town," whispered Monty who was sitting on my left.

"I thought they left new intakes for spring, newbies must be special," I replied as I took down the last of my notes.

After class finished, Monty and I packed up our stuff and headed outside, where my other two friends Raven and Jasper – whom I hadn't seen since I got back - were waiting. As soon as Raven saw me she came up and hugged me and said, "We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. But what I would like to talk to you about is the juicier details of your vacation, how was Venezuela?"

"Please, I don't want to talk about that either," I replied.

"Was it that bad?" asked Raven, raising her eyebrows.

"Let's just say, it started of on a good note and ended sourly," I replied.

"Well, aren't you going to ask me how was mine?" asked Raven.

"Ohh….I got so tied up in my own mama drama that I completely forgot to press you for details. How was NASA?" Raven was majoring in aeronautical engineering and she was one of the lucky few to have gotten through to do an internship at the space agency. How did we become friends? Well, let's just say we met under unfortunate circumstances; my first year at UCLA I dated her now ex-boyfriend, Finn Collins, while he was still seeing her, and when we realized he played us both, we began to bond over ways to destroy the sneaky son of a bitch. After, we just started bonding over everything, boys, clothes, shoes, school, life and the list goes on. It was through Raven that I met with Jasper, the biochemistry major and Monty who was going into home medicine. The four of us had remained together since then, prompting Jasper to refer to us as the Awesome Foursome…a reference I didn't agree on.

"NASA was nice, made some new acquaintances," she started and then looked at me, "met a guy. They also offered to hold a minor vacancy for me after I finish my degree. It's minor, but it's NASA. Who doesn't want to work for NASA. If I was offered to mop their floors I would do it." This is what I loved about Raven. She sets her eyes on something she wants and she goes for it. She had enough enthusiasm for both of us. She was strong and independent and willful. Raven continued talking about her internship and I didn't mind listening. But something urged me to look forward as we walked down the corridor and that was when I saw…_him_. It was like seeing a ghost. I stared with my eyes opened wide when I noticed that he saw me too. Brown eyes, hair slicked back and that damn devilish grin that you can never miss. It was like he was burdened with some kind of glorious purpose because you can't possibly look so good. But he walked right pass me, as though we were strangers, when we were far from that.

"Clarke," Raven snapped her fingers in front of my face, "are you listening to me?"

"I'm sorry, what'd you say?"

"I was asking you if you were going back to your dorm or are you coming with us to Starbucks. God, you look as though you've seen a ghost. Pull yourself together girl. The last two months couldn't have been that bad," Raven had that look on her face. The one that said she needed an explanation as to what was happening to her.

"Raven, I would tell you everything…later. I promise," I assured her.

"You better. I can't have my bestie blanking out on me all the time," she said.

As we walked through the doors onto the sidewalk, Raven hugged me; "I'd see you later for Art History."

We went our seperate directions. Raven, Monty and Jasper towards the campus gates, and me towards my dorm. But on the way over to my dorm, I kept telling myself that he's not here, that he's just an illusion. That he was just here to haunt me. Everything was still so clear in my mind, that one night, of the many nights we had together, and then the morning after he just left – like a thief in the night. I never got a chance to say good-bye to either one of them. There was no letter, no kind of explanation as to what happened. I never even got an address or a phone number or an email address. So I left as well, with my heartbroken by a guy whom I had known for no less than a month or two. A guy who left you like that after such a short time isn't supposed to break your heart like that. But what actually made it hurt was that, the time I spent with him was permanently engraved in my mind. The fact that he helped me take my mind of whatever was going on back at home would always be something that I'll remember. When I reached to my dorm room, I met my dorm mate passed out in nothing but her underwear – at least she had a great night last night. I changed into some comfortable pants and lied down on my bed with my microbiology textbook, with hope of getting some work done and taking my mind of Bellamy Blake.


End file.
